The Company of Scone
by Garmonbozia
Summary: 1/13   Be careful what you say in front of your companions.  You may end up taking a pastry on holiday.
1. Chapter 1

Well, if you think about it, a scone is sweet, but delicate. If it is to remain intact, it must be protected. The company of scones is enjoyable. This makes them useful in cases of intergalactic diplomacy and relations. They are also relatively useless in most other situations.

All of this is true.

Where I made my mistake was in prefacing these facts with the statement, "A scone is very much like a companion." In front of companions.

Had I not been quite so entranced by the crumbly perfection of Pond's patissorial efforts, I might have noticed, as I spoke, that she and the ever-protective Mr Pond were taking ever more offence. Might have stopped. Found some way to pull it back. I'm quite good at that; pulling it back. But it is rather a beautiful scone. I am about to eat it when it is snatched from my hand.

Bad doctor offends companions, no longer gets scone.

Pond lowers her head, lifts up her eyes at me from below the brow. This, I know from experience, means that she has become serious, and is not to be taken lightly. I straighten my face, attempt (fruitlessly, I might add) to avert my longing gaze from the snatched scone, and resolve to answer her truthfully.

"You're telling me, Doctor," and her voice was danger itself, "that I fulfil my role no better than a scone could?"

Why did I resolve to answer truthfully? I am allowed to lie. It is in the rules. And yet the resolution had been made, and what would it make of me to renege upon it?

Mr Pond, much as the stereotypical bartender of the Western tradition, is flicking his gaze between the two of us across the table, waiting to see how I will respond. I give my poor stolen scone one last glance, that it may know my true feelings even as I give it up forever. Open my mouth and hesitantly say, "After a _fashion_…"

I can pull this back. The logical argument branches and blossoms in my mind, and the words gather around it as leaves unfurling on a tree. Unfortunately, Pond takes it upon herself to chop down this particularly beautiful nascent limb.

She is irate. Stands and leans over the table, pointing a finger in my face. It is as I lean back that I realize just quite how aggravated she is.

"That scone wouldn't last ten minutes in my place!" I try nodding. Faced with such rage, and when no worlds or races are at stake, it is best to agree and concede. Pond does not seem to notice that I am nodding. "For starters, you'd probably _forget_ it, if it wasn't running after you. It wouldn't ask the right questions, it wouldn't notice things, it doesn't know you well enough to hold you back when you're making a _mess_ of things-" I am still nodding, hoping she will notice. Now Rory joins me in chorus. It is comforting to see my own fear on another face. "And _finally_," she cries, her voice reaching it's height and dropping back down into low, hissing danger, "_finally_, Doctor, it would not last ten minutes because _you_ would not last ten minutes before you _ate_ it."

She's finished, but she doesn't sit down. And if I don't say anything she is going to think of something else to say and the whole wretched thing will start again. Nodding has failed me. It is usually at this point at which something catastrophic might happen to distract her.

Nothing catastrophic happens.

Now it is I who find my eyes flicking to Mr Pond. Usually, in cases in which nothing catastrophic happens, he makes some humorous comment. The mood breaks and all is well. He says nothing. I rather fear he might be in shock; still staring wide-eyed into his wife's profile. Still, in a mild, barely-perceptible way, nodding.

I note a new flare in Pond's eyes and take it upon myself to be the one who makes the joke.

Which is how the words, "Is that a challenge?", come to escape my lips.

In the ensuing five minutes, the terms of the wager are settled. I am to take the scone, in companion capacity, to some destination not less than five suns and three hundred years from our current place on twenty-first century Earth. The direction of travel is not important. I am to travel for three days, with the scone, and gather photographic evidence of these travels. On the third day I am to return to Earth and Pond shall inspect the scone.

"But wait," interrupts Mr Pond. "How will we know you didn't just nip back to five minutes ago and steal another scone? Or just buy one somewhere before you come back?"

"Pond," I say to his wife, "Have I ever asked you to lick a scone prior to this moment?"

"…No."

"Pond, if you'd be so kind, lick this scone." I hold it close to her face for her convenience. She, however, physically recoils from it and me. Tucks her chin back, presses her lips into a line and looks up at me from under her brow. This time it does not mean that she is serious, but that she wonders whether I am. "Upon my return, we can use the Tardis to check for genetic material. If it does not detect that the returning scone has been licked by Pond, you will know that it is not the same scone." I shake it slightly in my hand, reiterating that I am holding it close to Pond's face. I am doing this for _her_. Eventually, she sticks out her tongue and obliges.

All things settled, I set about not forgetting the scone due to its inability to run after me. Pond would not have to run if only she would keep up, but I have learned a lesson today about tact and I do not say this.

First, I try placing the scone on my shoulder, much in the jaunty manner that pirates kept their parrots. I have always thought that a parrot would be a good idea for me, just never got around to it. Well, there was one. Our friendship was troubled and brief. He was, when last I checked, a minor oracle on Cloridon 4, too fat for his perch on crackers, which are his preferred offering. We shall speak no more of him.

The scone, having no talons, almost falls. I catch it but, frightened by how nearly our journey had been over before it began, wrap it in my handkerchief and placed it in my jacket pocket this time. It rests there quite snugly.

Somewhere in the background, in the sweetly thoughtful tone that usually means he's about to say something _incredibly_ stupid, Rory murmurs, "Do you ever get when you say something over and over, and it doesn't sound right anymore?" Stretching his face and tongue, he mangles, "Scone."

He goes on with this, in the background. I have been rather distracted by the smug smile on Pond's face. She stands square in front of me, arms folded, and is _smug_. To _me_. I stand tall, maintain my unflappable composure, ask her, "What?"

"You _actually_ think you're going to do this, don't you?"

"Yes." I have, after all, recently resolved to be truthful. I feel like it still applies.

"Fine," she says.

"Alright," I say.

"Off you go then," she says.

"I will," I say.

In the background, "Sssscone," says Mr Pond. I step into the Tardis, and as I am closing the door he is still saying it, rolling it around his mouth like a boiled sweet, waiting for it to sound right again. He almost drowns out Pond calling me back.

"Yes?"

"Be careful."

I nod. This time they actually let me get the door closed. I can hear Rory outside, still going, as I set the scone on the console and unwrap the handkerchief around it. "Just you and me now," I tell it. "Where shall we go to, then?"

With one eye always on my crumbly new companion, I draw the overhead screen towards us, and call up destinations that fit the conditions of the wager. There are many, lists and lists and lists like the biggest train timetable you've ever seen. Because the sky is big. Infinite. And time does not come in far behind. Three of those tiny twenty-four hour days isn't enough to explore the tiniest corner of it all.

"Aha! Let's go to Correl. The days are eight-seven hours there."

Destination chosen, I pull the vortex lever. There is, naturally, something of a jolt. It is all I can do to spare Scone an untimely end in the console's central core.

Yes. I capitalize Scone now. What of it?


	2. Chapter 2

Pond had informed me that Scone would be no good as a companion due to his inability to ask the correct questions.

Yes. It's a him.

It is important, however, to consider the personal bias inherent in Pond's statement. This is the kind of thing one has to consider when one is a universal authority. For instance, what did she mean by 'correct'?

At this point in the journey, Pond would usually be firing a great number of questions relating to our destination and our purpose there. That's a very human thing, you know, all this charging about and knowing why. And, indeed, if these are the questions which are considered correct, Scone is being a very poor companion indeed. Scone has asked no questions whatever, about Correl, about the time we are to visit or, as any new companion might, about the Tardis. It is only the last of these which annoys me.

Scone is a much calmer, more philosophical travelling companion. I shall take Pond on adventures. I shall _Scone_ on holiday.

I am more careful with landing the Tardis than I was with setting off. I first place Scone squarely on my chair, ensure he is safe and comfortable, then land. "Right, then, Scone, this is Correl. It's about three hundred and fifty years after we just left Earth." Beyond the Tardis door there is a series of explosions and bright, colourful flashes. I do not duck or shout; it would seem Scone's calm is contagious. "Ooh, fireworks. Party!"

I reach out for Scone's accustomed travelling hankie, and pat my pockets with the other hand while I wrap him. "Got my sonic… Got my Jammie Dodgers, because I am _not_ going to eat you, Scone, I can assure you and Miss Pond of _that_. Got my… marker? Oh, no, but that might _poke _you, Scone," so I throw it over my shoulder. Back in the pocket, there is something else. "What's this?"

It comes dangling from my pocket by the wrist strap. Twenty-first century technology, crude electronic controls. Written down the side in permanent marker; 'Rory'. "Yes, thank you, Amy, but I do _own_ a camera, you know." It saddens me to find that, as I say this, I turn my head towards my shoulder, expecting her to be there. She is not.

While I appreciate (if not understand) the human need for privacy, I feel it is my duty to check the camera memory. To ensure I am not overwriting precious memories. Yes.

Picture of Amy. Picture of Rory and Amy. Picture of Rory's car. Picture of Amy. Picture of the Tardis. Picture of Amy. Picture of-

"Oh, my word, Scone! This, I tell you, is for neither your eyes nor mine."

Yes, Scone has eyes. Little raisin eyes dotted all over his body. I have seen creatures with more eyes and stranger placed.

I should not be thinking about the raisins in Scone. The delicious, juicy raisins in the sweet, dry flesh of Scone.

No. I put the camera and Scone in my pockets, leap down the stairs and throw open the Tardis door, into the thirty-three hour night of Correl. The sky is lit with the travelling traceries, all the blinding colours, of remote controlled fireworks, and the streets live and heave with peoples of many, many races from all over the system. There are army uniforms amongst them. Sontaran, Church of England and, worryingly, the UPF. Which is, for the uninitiated, the Universal Peacekeeping Force.

But that, I shall worry over later. At this moment, a great number of these people are looking at me. Somewhere in the overall roar, there is a cheer. Which is nice. Very soon, though quite without my express permission, I am borne up on their shoulders to be carried into the parade.

You'd be surprised how often this happens, actually. I probably haven't done whatever they're trying to thank me for yet. Therefore, since I will not rewarded after this event, I must enjoy my rewards now. After ensuring that the Tardis key is safely put away, I take out Scone and place him in my stomach. Take out the camera and ensure that this event is well recorded. Because Pond was being _smug_, and it did not suit her, and it must be put from her mind never to be revisited.

Lifting Scone up so that he can see around (Scone, in all this, being rather short), I turn my head to the right and address the cleric bearing up my shoulder.

"Excuse me!"

He doesn't answer me right away. He looks off at his nearest friend and mutters, through his teeth, "He's talking to me!"

"Yes, I am rather!"  
>"Yes, sir. Sorry, sir."<p>

"What's the big to-do for?"

He laughs, both him and his friend. I suppose me being the guest of honour I'm supposed to know. So what I do is I bring Scone down and point to him. "Oh, no, it's not for me. I want you to explain to this one. He was but recently baked into this world."

They go on laughing for a while, but Scone remains as philosophical as ever, and is not offended. Eventually, they oblige. "We won, my flaky friend! The Second Universal War is over!"

"Oh!" I explain, "V.E. Day. Excellent." It certainly explains all the impromptu intimacy going on on the main street balconies over my head, but the elss said about that the better. It has been rather a debauched day all over, but the less said of that the better.

The parade finally bears me to what must be the main square. I, like a tourist, am still carrying Rory's camera, and make sure I have pictures of the control bay for the light display for Amy. She likes all this kind of thing, doesn't she? All this future stuff. If she'd stop putting it on Tumblr, which rather gives the game away, I wouldn't mind. I also let the laughing clerics have their picture taken with Scone.

The crowd places me, entirely without effort on my part, on my feet on a dais at the centre of the square. Well, off-centre. Next to the thing which is _actually_ in the centre of the square. That is about twenty feet tall and, for now, covered in a canvas sheet.

A woman, still in her UPF sergeant's uniform, through with a wreath of tinsel and flowers wrapped around her hat, approaches me. Her handshake is solid and warm, and I am genuinely starting to believe that I might be the hero of this particular story. Which is _wonderful_.

"General," she says, meaning me, "We weren't expecting you. I'm so glad you came."

"_General_," I say to Scone. "General _Doctor_." He doesn't giggle. Pond would giggle. Pond would have said it first, and even if she hadn't would have squealed back, 'I know!', in that particular little girl way she has. "You know, Scone, there is such a thing as _too_ calm."

The Sergeant is looking at me strangely, so I place Scone back in my pocket and try to play the right part. "Well, I had finished the… negotiations?"

She laughs, "Yes, I suppose you didn't leave them much to discuss!"

"Aha, quite. And I just… fancied a party. Asked around, who had the best V day, and they tell me Correl, so here I am!"

"And you're not even here just a tiny bit for the unveiling?"

I am beginning to suspect what might be under that canvas. I smile, and in my pocket I know Scone is smiling too. Yes, he can smile. There is a little split right around the middle of him, because he is really rather perfectly baked. It is a straight, if slightly ragged, and peaceful smile. And he would break so sweetly along it and the crumb inside would be moist and I touch the Jammie Dodgers in my inside pocket, just so I know it's there, for they too are tasty and have not been licked by Pond.

The Sergeant asks me if I will say a few words. About the end of the war, about the moment of this unveiling. What can I do but agree?

Having not actually _fought_ the war yet, though, I am rather at a loss for what to say.

I step up to the microphone. In a great wave, through the roaring crowd, silence falls. This takes a while, which gives me long enough to set Scone, nestled in the handkerchief, at my feet. Giving these speeches, I have nearly always had a companion standing at my side. Standing, waiting for the last of the quiet, I wonder who will fight the Second Universal War with me. It takes away my appetite for public oration.

Tapping the microphone, "Hello?"

The city erupts back at me.

"Ah, so you're all there. Um… We won!"

The cheer is deafening, stirring. Which is all very wonderful and affecting, but it strikes me that this has been a long and difficult war. They are screaming not just victory but relief. Somehow, I almost don't want them to pull down that canvas sheet anymore. But as I stand, I hear it fall behind me.

Turn, with Rory's camera, and snap up at a twenty foot bronze statue of me. Then I retake the picture, with Scone and myself in the foreground. Because you must never forget the terms of the wager, whatever might be happening.

It is when I lower the camera that I see them.

Dozens of them. Crowded behind my knee-high bronze feet.

Silents.

I reach for my marker and have no marker. It would have poked Scone so I threw it away. Typical bloody companion, that's all I have to say.

One of the Silents stretches out it's long white fingers and I begin to move. The bedecked Sergeant seems concerned, steps out to stop me. "No, no, nothing to worry about, just… forgot to lock the Tardis."

The crowd is no longer so inviting. Or rather, they _are_. They want to touch and hug and carry and congratulate. It is _my_ attitude which has changed. I am no longer so assured that I deserve their adoration, and I will not accept it until I know. In this crush, with all these grabbing hands, it is no longer safe for Scone in my pocket. I take him out and carry him against my chest, shouldering through the grabbing hands and grinning faces.

There is something behind me

There is something I am running from.

The very fact that I cannot remember what it is tells me what it is.

In all of this, only one thing comforts me. The Silents have no mouths to speak of, and therefore they pose no threat to Scone.


	3. Chapter 3

"You! You were _sitting_ there! At my _feet_, no less! Why didn't you _warn_ me?" Scone says nothing. This is either because he has no excuse, or because he is a scone. "Well, _help_, would you? I'm trying to remember, was it just one or was it many? It was many, wasn't it? I feel like it was many."

Pond would have had a marker.

But I will not resent Scone. That way lies crumbly deliciousness and a lost bet. And smug Pond. And that I cannot, _shall_ not accept.

"Alright, alright, what have I learned from this? What should I be thinking about?"

No facetious comment from Mr Pond about the Silents still being about in three hundred years. No equally facetious, indeed smug, follow-up comment from Mrs Pond about my statue. I'm so used to being interrupted it's become incredibly hard to think without it.

"Second Universal War. Kicks off. Peacekeepers put in place. War won. Silents involved… Wait," and here I turn to point at Scone, that he might better understand just what exactly I'm telling him, "I've just come from the twenty-first century the _first_ universal war hasn't happened yet, so what I have to do is go back and find out where it kicked off, why it kicked off, and where me and the Silents stand in the whole grand scheme."

Juicy little raisin eyes look mournfully at me.

"Yes, I too am disturbed by the phrase, 'me and the Silents', Scone… Anyway." Swinging round to the monitor, I can call up the history of my current place in time. Like most wars, the exact point of origin for UW2 is fairly obscure. One thing, however, is clear; I don't come in until after the first twenty years or so. Which doesn't sound like me at all, really.

I'm not explaining this out loud. The Tardis is far too quiet. "Pond, knock the radio on, would yoh, of course not. You're not here. If you were, I'd be talking to you, and I wouldn't need the radio. I'll just walk all the way over here myself and knock the radio on, then."

Correl radio. All about VE day and the speech I just gave. I knock the radio back off. Miss Earth music. Pond would have an MP3 player.

While I'm thinking about where to start, I send the Ponds the couple of photographs I already have. Whether I like them or not. Within moments, the phone rings, and for once I do not think about answering it. Drag it off the console and over to my chair, and sit with Scone on my left knee, watching the photographs go by on the monitor.

"Doctor?"

"Pond! Hello, how are you, how's Rory, what's happening, had a good day, tell me all about it."

"…Little starved for company, Doctor?"

"Not at all. Scone and I are getting along famously. Aren't we, Scone? Scone says yes."

"Why is there a statue of you on my computer?"

"Oh, you built a _statue_. I've only been gone a day."

"The _photo_. …What? Hold on, Doctor, Rory wants to talk."

"That is the coolest thing, and I _demand_ to be taken with you to whatever event inspired that so that they'll build one of me and when my grandchildren are in space they'll be able to see it and-" There is a scuffle as Amy struggles the phone back from him.

"Hello? If you could answer my first question, please."

My resolution to be truthful was yesterday. I think that means it's fading, somewhat. "We won a war, Scone and I. Just thought I'd check in. How long has it been there?"

"You're just finishing Day One. You won a _war_?"

"Yes, but… it's … complicated. I'll get back to you. Do call back, won't you? Scone says hello. Goodbye." I hang up. Harder to talk to her than to have her talk to me. In addition, I have noticed something. Something else you have thought Scone, with his many delicious little eyes no, not delicious, think of the Jammie Dodgers, would have noticed.

I nudge him. Nearly nudge him off my knee and right him before I chide him. "Amy warned me about you. She _said_ you wouldn't notice things."

Behind me, during my oration, and behind my rapt little entourage of Silents and untouched by them, is my wife.

So I lift the phone again. Call Stormcage, see if they have a policy on pastries.

"As gifts?" the girl on the phone asks me.

"No," I tell her, "As visitors."

"Alright, sir," she says. "No need to take that tone."


	4. Chapter 4

They've told her we're coming. I hate when they do that. She's _prepared_ now. Wearing perfume. I can smell it from round the hall. She's in prison; where does she get perfume? But I can't ask her that. I asked her once before, and it turned out I'd brought it to her. From later. She calls this 'making an effort', and sometimes wonders aloud why I don't do the same. I explain to her that the landing co-ordinates for Stormcage, and the endless security checks it takes to visit her officially, are a considerable effort, but this never seems to please her.

River's shadow, and the shadow of the bars, falls across the hallway ahead. Before I come into her line of vision, I stop, straighten my jacket. Against my better judgement, I unwrap Scone from his travelling blanket and wear it once again as a handkerchief in my top pocket. This is effort. This will please River.

But it is my experience that every upside must necessarily have, on it's underneath, a downside.

I lean around, and there she stands, right by the bars. Waiting. And I try, as I always do, to remember that we are husband and wife and I have nothing to fear from that predator gleam in her eyes, but it's difficult. Very difficult.

And River says, "Hello, sweetie."

Yes, yes, all very natural, very normal, the way it goes. But, down in my pocket, without his blanket to insulate him from all this, Scone hears. And I feel him smile. "That," I explain sternly, "refers to me."

"Who else?" River asks, and through the bars she grabs my lapels and pulls me close and kisses me. She will so insist on this kissing thing. Honestly, I don't know where to put myself sometimes. And she never gives me a chance, either; usually by the time I've gotten over her attack, she's finished.

I envy Mr Pond who, it seems, exists in a perpetual state of readiness for just such events.

River releases me and steps back. "What," I ask her, "was the point of that?"

Her face moves slowly into its calmest, most relaxed expression. For a moment, I am relieved, before I remember that this is rarely, if ever, a good thing. A placid River is a prepared River. Whether she is prepared for a proposal or hell itself being entirely relative and dependent upon circumstance. "Excuse me?" she says. It is her voice which decides me just what she is prepared for. On pure instinct, I move out of arm's reach, and edge towards the cell door.

"No, I mean, I'm coming in."

"Oh."

So I give the lock a blast with the sonic. It pops open and I let myself in. Very soon, there is a stunner aimed at my back, and I turn towards the guard. "Yes?"

"Step out," he says, "and lock that door at once."

I oblige. "Step in," I repeat, doing so, "and lock that door at once." I pull it behind me and it locks. He grimaces at me from behind the stunner, but, ultimately puts it back down and steps away.

River sits down on the bed and I lean on the desk. Unable to move from my mind that photograph, of River standing behind those Silents. Even, if there are more the photograph doesn't show, amongst them. But this is conjecture, and I have asked her nothing.

"So," she smiles, her diary open at her side, "where are we?"

"…I've just come from Correl."

"45 B.C. or 23-"

"2357, yes."

"Ah," she grins, "Your _statue_. You took off after that, as I recall. Didn't you like it?"

"I don't know yet."

"Beg pardon?"

"Haven't fought the war yet." River's face falls. One hand comes to her mouth. Classically, it is a gesture of sadness, characteristic of stifling a sob. In River, it has always seemed to me as though she is reminding herself of what she can and cannot say. Needless to say, this reaction leaves me concerned. It looks like sympathy. Like she's sorry for me. "What?"

"I-"

"No, River, really. Tell me something. Tell me you and I come out of that war… _intact_."

She sighs relief, bats her lashes. This, she can handle, "Oh, well, you've been to V day, sweetie. You know we do."

All I can smell is her perfume. All I can see is her eyes. This, I find, is the key trouble with being a liar oneself; it becomes so much more difficult to spot it in others.

"Physically, yes. But the you see, River, I didn't actually speak to you, at that event. Didn't know you were there, in fact." I leave out the fact that Scone knew, and said nothing. He's not to blame for that. He and River haven't been properly introduced, after all. Rude of me, to bring him in here without that, but there are things more important first. "See… I saw it later, in a photograph."

As I am taking out Rory's camera, I can see she knows what's coming. Considering with herself on how to deal with it.

Crude human technology. Trying to find that all important photograph I keep finding the one of Scone with the two Clerics, and the one of the Ponds I'm sure I was never supposed to see. Eventually, I get there. Find it and show it to her. Or I would, if she would look. River is staring down to one side, refusing to look at me or the picture. Tapping her pen on the pages of her diary. Classic avoidance techniques.

I sit down next to her. "I wish you'd give me _something_ to go on, River."

"It's a picture of me in a crowd of Silents watching you make your speech." She says this without lifting her eyes. So I put it away and wait for her to go on. "Wonderful speech, by the way. 'We won'…"

"What would you have said? They were lucky I knew that much!"

She looks at me then. Both big eyes, and smiling. Takes my hand, holding it on the diary pages between us. "You deserve that statue, my love. And come the time you will understand what happens. What _has_ to happen."

"Coming from you? With your rather chequered history when it comes to things that _have_ to happen?"

"And look what I did. You _will_ understand, -" Her mouth forms another ending to the sentence. The lips and the tongue are in position, but the air stops in her throat, ends with a glottal click and no sound. "That's all I can tell you."

"_Spoilers_," I fill in. Can't resist the urge to imitate her, and she does not chide me, but smiles. And now I really am worried. Whatever it is which 'has' to happen, River cannot even bring herself to be arch about it. "It's bad, isn't it?"

She puts her free hand on my shoulder. "You've seen the ending. It's all statues and fireworks."

'And the Silence,' I think, but don't say it. Inside, I turn away. Let go of her hand and try to think of a question I can ask which she _will_ be able to answer. Anything. It is as I turn back, all but ready to plead, 'Give us a clue', that I find myself called to action, for her teeth are about to close across Scone's pale, flaky middle.

I throw myself across the bed, pinning her as I try to knock her hand from her lips. I succeed in this, but Scone flies into the air, and it is all I can do to catch him before he meets the cell floor.

"What is the matter with you?" River cries, affronted.

He has been scarred. The dark, damp crescents of her teeth are printed on his top and bottom. One of his dark juicy eyes rolls from its flaky socket and rolls away. "Alas," I mumur, before I can quite help myself, "Poor Scone!" With the same rage as over any other companion damaged, I turn to River and demand to know just what she thought she was doing.

"…It _is_ a scone, isn't it?"

"No. It's Scone."

"Yes, that's what I-"

"_No_, River. This is Scone. Scone, by the way, I'm terribly sorry that this should be your introduction, but this is my wife, Professor Song. Who has _obviously_ taken leave of her senses."

"I thought it was for me!"

"_Him_, not it!"

"You never have been any good at presents! God knows I'll be living with this godawful perfume for the next week…"

"I haven't asked you to wear that perfume yet! And to be honest, I can't think why I ever would."

"Well, I don't know that when they tell me you're coming! It could another you with another nose that likes what are you doing?" For I have taken her hand, and turned it palm up flat, and placed Scone on it.

"Try, if you would, to refrain from eating my companion while I fix this wretched little camera." Her face becomes as set and still as stone while she waits. River and Scone, now that I think about it, have quite a bit in common. Neither of them question me, neither of them seem to care. Both of them owe their lives to me, but I shan't say that to either. In fact, it might be best that they remain mortal enemies. Scone has a rumbly little grimace from this angle which tells me they are mortal enemies, and who could blame him? But I shudder to think what might happen if wife and companion were to unite in that silent, unflappable calm.

I'd go, you know. Go and start again somewhere. Some quiet little system where they don't know me. There must be one I haven't been to.

"Do try to smile, you two. Pond will want to see."

River obliges. I reach out and turn Scone until he appears to do the same, and take the picture.

"So my mother _is_ alright then?" River asks, as soon as her false smile has fallen away. "I just wondered. It's not much of a leap, to think that if something had happened to her you might go mad and start talking to a scone."

"…It's not?" River shakes her head. "It's your mother's fault I'm talking to a scone in the first place. And I think I should let you know, you've just scarred and dampened your own little baked half-brother, after a fashion, him having been born of the same mother." I have gone on speaking, but she has ignored me. She is, instead, writing something down on a piece of paper at the desk. "What's this?"

"Co-ordinates. You want to visit the beginning of UW2."

"I do, yes, very much, but you can't-"

"I can."

"But… But 'spoilers'."

"That's my line and you've stolen it twice now." She folds up the paper and holds it out to me. Still, I recoil. It is either a feeling that she shouldn't be doing this, or that no good can come of my accepting, or both. So I busy my hands, with coddling Scone safely back within the handkerchief, using it to dry out the place where her tongue glanced his side. "Take it," River says. "You should know how it starts."

"That was the other thing. There's no record of me before the eighteenth year."

River smiles, lifts an eyebrow. Back to being arch again, which is easier, which is better, "That doesn't mean you weren't there, my love."

So, with Scone and her co-ordinates in one hand, I sonic back out of there, and lock her back in. The guard steps up to check the door. Either he does not think or does not care that if I wanted to take her with me there would be nothing he could do.

It is, apparently, not me but the bars that get River so very excited, because it's only after I'm out again that she pulls me for the goodbye kiss. She does so like to bracket our visits this way. I try to hold Scone as far out of the way as possible, all too aware of the infinite and mortal perils of her mouth. That keeps happening, doesn't it? First me, then time itself, and now poor innocent Scone, who's never done a thing to her. I should investigate, but there will be a time and a place for that.

"Do me one favour?" she says when she lets me go.

"Yes?"

"Next time you're coming, bring me a plate of scones I can actually eat? I've taken a terrible craving all of a sudden."

Honestly, her callousness leaves me utterly horrified. To say such things, even while Scone is still mourning the loss of his little eye, the introduction of the terrifically dangerous disease of the Damp to his little body, it beggars belief. I hold him close, and place him protectively in my pocket, and leave without another word to her.


	5. Chapter 5

As ever, the safety of one's friends must come first. Second, after saving the world and third after saving the world and saving an innocent race. At this moment, however, I have no greater priority than to safeguard Scone's wellbeing. We lose precious moments in the console room as I stupidly vacillate between medical bay and kitchen, before opting for the latter.

"Terrible, thoughtless woman, your sister," I tell him in apology. "She bullied me into the whole marriage thing, you know. Kept trying to kill me." Through all of this, I am switching on the hot plate, preparing a light milk and sugar glaze. Trying to find raisins, or a replacement eye of equal size and, yes, beauty. "But you _will_ make it through this, Scone, I promise you that."

Scone is stoic and silent while I inspect the little scars left on his back and belly. Fortunately none of them seem to have broken the surface. The most important thing is to get the moisture out. Testing the hot plate with my fingertips, I lift up Scone. He languishes on my palm and I tell him, "I'm sorry, but this may sting a bit."

Just because he cannot scream does not mean he's not in pain as I press him down to cauterize the wounds. Then, his protective glaze is replenished and dried in a low oven.

Only one thing still worries me; that little tongue spot on the side is still there, and still darkening. Spreading into the softest and least-defended part of his flesh, down the side.

Back in the console room, I send the next set of pictures to the Ponds. She doesn't call this time, she sets up a video link. I cannot but accept.

"Hello, P-"  
>"Why do you only ever visit my daughter when I'm not there? Why has <em>the scone<em> met my daughter and I haven't seen her in months? And _why_ are you blow-drying the scone?"

"Because in addition to being your daughter she is my wife, because I had to see her and Scone was with me and because she has _no_ respect for the safety of the people I travel with."

"…'People'?"

"…And pastries, people and pastries, I mean, you know what I mean, how long has it _been_, Pond?"

"This is Day Two." I try not to sigh, but it must be that she sees it. "Bored, at all, Doctor?"

"Bored? How could I be bored? The tension's killing me. It is my sacred duty as a keeper of companions to return Scone to your custody without mould. Pond, my heart is in my mouth, here."

"Oh, well, then I'll leave you to it." She reaches up to turn her camera off.

"_No_, wait."

"Yes?" There's that smile again. That smug smile. It just does not suit her and I just cannot accept it. And it's a comfort, then, to turn off the hairdryer and draw Scone close. I feign disinterest by inspecting that little spot of disease.

"I need clearance. To break the terms of the wager."

"See, I _knew_ you couldn't resist! Rory! Rory, come and watch, he's going to eat it! You do know this means I win, don't you? This means I was right, right?" Her eyes are all lit up. It really is rather unattractive on her. I take one of my Jammie Dodgers from my inside pocket and scoff it, just to see that look go off her face. Denied, Pond pouts. Which is much better. That little-girl look much better for her. In addition, she no longer thinks she's _won_ anything, which is wonderful. "Well, then, _what_?" she moans.

Scone on one hand, I shake River's co-ordinates from my pocket with the other. It's rude of me, but there's no time, so I say with my mouth full, "Need to visit a time, but it's only two-hundred and _ninety_ years…" I pause, struggling with her writing, "Yeah, about that; not three hundred."

"_Fine_," she snaps, and switches off her camera. Not very ladylike of her, but I'll let it go.

With his remaining eyes, Scone looks up at me. "Oh, don't. I'll find you a new raisin wherever we land." But he's still looking. This, apparently, is not what he's getting at. Could be I'm looking at the wrong eyes. Scone, maybe, is not looking at me, but at the paper in my other hand.

"No," I tell him. "I don't know if this is the right thing either."


	6. Chapter 6

River's handwriting is terrible. There is something here which is either a one or a seven. And I don't want to call Pond back just yet, considering how we left it. Scone is as non-committal as ever. So I show it to the monitor and let the Tardis decide. It's responsible for the woman, it should know.

It decides that it's a seven, and off we go. Scone is already in my pocket. Tardis travel is apparently becoming more familiar to him. I take him out while we are in transit and set him on the console.

"Now, Scone, what you must understand about the visit we're about to pay is that interference is going to have to be strictly forbidden. That's what River was trying to tell us when she said I was there at the beginning. We're part of events, Scone, we just _cannot_ do _anything_ which might change the course of things. We are present purely as observers. There's something here I have to learn. We look for that, we find that, we go to a beach until the rest of the bet is over. Alright?"

Scone gives no response. Just sits there, sullen and delicious, as if to say that this was not what he expected. The party, the fireworks, yes, but from there on out it's all been intrigue and adventure, and this is just not what Scone signed up for. And it occurs to me, how dare he? Like any companion, I have taken him and opened unto him all the beautiful mysteries of the universe, and he wants to go to the beach. Too much like his baker, if you ask me, and with none of her strength or bravery.

"Look, I understand you're disappointed, but it's been an experience, hasn't it? Haven't you lived as… _probably_ no other scone has lived? Alright, we've had a close call with River, but you're all dried out now and- Well, it's not as though this is how _I_ expected to spend my three days either!"

The longer he sits there, the less he says, the more riled up I get. The more _ungrateful_ he seems.

It's a low, vicious thing to say, but it's out before I know I'm saying it; "I can _eat_ you tomorrow night, you know."

There is a shudder as we near our destination. Scone slides down around the console, stopped at the back of the typewriter. I can barely see him and his back is to me. His back, by the way, is the part to the left of where River infected him. He seems quite safe where he's propped up, so I start to go about the landing protocols. Between manoeuvres, I look over. At the top of his little head. "I… I didn't mean that. Anyway, you'll be stale by tomorrow and-"

A second shudder jolts us left. Scone rolls and falls. I dive to catch him. Over my head, the typewriter dings. Sitting on the floor, I place Scone inside my handkerchief once more, stroking his head. "Well, it comes to us all, doesn't it?" His empty eye socket glares at me. I shut up, and am reminded of River. Which, in turn, reminds me to take the brakes off. Our landing is quiet, gentle.

Knowing what I've said, and not knowing what is beyond the door, I tell him, softly, "I'm sorry, Scone."

This time, I make sure I bring the marker. Scone, I feel, understands.

This is the Hapsburg-Antioch outpost, 2308. It's a former Church of England station which, at this moment in time, is playing host to the Bravo Unit of the Universal Peacekeeping Force.

Seven. I look at River's co-ordinates again, and it is all too clearly a one. This is not the start of the war. There _was_ no UPF at the start of the war, never mind a second unit of it.

Oh, I could blame River. But then again, with me in her cell, might it not have been hard for her to concentrate? To write properly? Could blame the Tardis, but then again, it can only do what it can with the pixels it's given. No. But _Scone_, on the other hand, Scone _knew_ and just wouldn't admit to it. I've told him, non-committal is not a quality I look for in a companion.

At the Tardis door, I try to make a decision. Do I go back, change the co-ordinates and go where I'm supposed to be? Or do it… get grabbed from the door by a young woman in an evening gown and pulled behind her down the corridor, yes, wonderful option, not given much of a choice really. She has long dark hair, pulls me into a side room and locks the door.

"Hello," I try, but she is watching at the window. A group of soldiers run past in the hallway and she ducks. "Hello?"

"You're the Doctor."

Now I know how River felt when I filled in her favourite little phrase. It throws me. Power shifts to the young lady, in her glittering blue dress that whispers on the floor as she comes towards me. I'm about to tell her that yes, I am, and try and claw some of my composure back, but she walks right up to me and starts searching my jacket, pocket for pocket.

"Excuse me, but-"

"Are Scone-Doctor or not-Scone-Doctor?"

Either the Tardis is having a problem with its translator, or this young lady is new to the concept of language. I take a moment to decipher what she said, before taking Scone from my pocket. She unwraps him, sets him on my hand, and grabs the camera from the other side of my jacket. Quickly takes the picture.

"Alright," I tell her, "Now you." At least if I can get the camera back I'm having some input on this situation. But she ducks away. Gives me the camera back but tucks her head down towards her chest. As I see more of her, I realize just how young she is. Too young for the dress, for one, and uncomfortable in it. Shifting foot to foot, arms folded.

"No. Him am _not_ making Jessica-picture. And Not-Scone-Doctor says Doctor and Scone stop fighting."

Momentarily, I am distracted by the desire to pat Scone's head again, to apologize. But then the implication of what she just said sinks in. "Wait, am… Am I already here?"

"Was. Is being gone now." She only lifts her head enough to look me in the eye. "Doctor?" I stop stroking Scone to look back. "Her am sorry."

The arms unfold. One hand balls up and swings, too strong and too heavy for the size of that arm, square into my jaw.

Darkness falls, I fall, and from his place on my hand Scone too falls. I try not to land on top of him. As the last of consciousness slides away, and stretch out a hand. To try and pull him into my protection. Because of the girl, the strange, shuffling girl with the English all her own; though she seems to understand something of the importance of Scone, I do not trust her not to eat him.

Slowly, painfully, light returns. Red through the eyelids first and then blinding white.

I have been moved into a chair, which is nice, considerate. I have also, it would appear, been chained to it by the ankles, which is not quite so nice.

It is in the moment at which I try to close my eyes again, against that stabbing pain of first light, that they snap open. Pain is nothing. Where is Scone? What has that horrible girl done with him? Has he even survived?

There, at a table across the room, she sits with one foot tucked under and the skirt of the dress hitched up around her knees. One vile little finger is daubing around the front of Scone's head, and on the table is a scattering of dark little nuggets I recognize immediately to be his eyes.

It never ceases to amaze me, that my enemies should inflict such tortures upon those few whose lives cross with mine, even when I am at their mercy.

"Stop that at once!" In situations where one is physically incapable of intervention, a firm tone is sometimes the most useful weapon. Certainly, it seems to shock her. Her head flicks up, and the terrible hand jumps away from Scone. "It's me you want, not him."

On her palm, she turns Scone towards me. There, where his empty eye-socket should be, is fresh new raisin. It glistens with milk, as does the tip of her finger. "Him told her be ready to fix Scone. Had to find size-right one."

In an oddly childish offering of apology, she scoops the extra raisins off the table and holds them out. And yes, they look juicy and tender and eye-like. And here, in my distress, recovering from my sojourn in the great beyond, it is all too easy to imagine the sweet, wet bursting, dampening the crumb with rich, tart fruit flavour and I say, "No. Thank you. There is, however, a Jammie Dodger in my top pocket, which-" I pause her and jerk the chain holding my right hand down, "I am unable to get for myself. If you wouldn't mind."

"Yes, Doctor."

The girl shakes down her skirts and crosses the room. Fishes my biscuit from my pocket and holds it up until I can get it between my teeth. Once again, I am forced to speak with my mouth full.

"So am I to deduce that I left instructions to this effect?" Her face goes blank. The round blue eyes do not just drain but widen, terrified. Remembering her limited English, I simplify. "Did I tell you to do this?"

"Yes."

"And who are you?"

"Am Jessica."

"And we know each other?"  
>"Yes."<p>

I try not to roll my eyes at her. "How?"

"Am… am Doctor bad-friend. Him is… not likes her very much."

She says it so matter-of-factly I am forced to believe it is the truth. There is, however, something in how she looks away to say it, how the round little face falls in on itself, and I resolve to be patient with her at least. She does, however, have me chained, which seems very much like a bad-friend thing to do.

"Doctor just said she fixes Scone and not lets him leave. Then goes away."

"'Not lets him leave'?" I repeat. Tension makes my voice go tight and high and afterwards I have to clear my throat. "…Why?"

"Not until not-bet time."

Which means 'Not until the bet is over'. Either the Tardis is starting to catch up or I'm getting used to her.

"Might I see Scone? Please?" I wish to check that he is unharmed, has not been interfered with in any way. When she goes to get him I notice the screwdriver lying slightly farther back on the table. "And that there too, please, I would very much like to see that. I promise I won't use it to free myself."

"He tells her would say that," she smiles, and brings me Scone. As I turn him over in one hand, checking for devices implanted or damage sustained, the girl, Jessica, sits down by my feet and rests her head against my knee. I wonder just how bad-friend she can be, when this is a gesture she seems to be used to.

"Not-Scone Doctor says Scone Doctor and All Doctor and rest-all happier Doctor just stays here."

The tips of my fingers, which are all that could reach her anyway, want very much to stroke her hair. To offer some comfort. This, due to the continued ache in my jaw and my scare with Scone and the bump on my head where I fell and not to mention all the chains, surprises me.

"Did Not-Scone Doctor happen to mention _why_?" I ask. She shakes her head, and I can feel, even from up above her, an overwhelming sadness I don't fully understand. I am about to let those fingertips do what they will when the room recedes.

A feeling almost like losing consciousness again, for a moment. A brief drift into something both more and less than perception. A message on the psychic paper.


	7. Chapter 7

Whoever I am in the future, I must remember this event very, very well, because Jessica will not take the psychic paper from my pocket. And will not be tempted, not even with my last Jammie Dodger. I feel it is important to note for the record that any glance I may or may not cast at Scone during these deliberations is purely in order to ensure that he is still safe. I am in no way considering sacrificing him to her. Besides, if she'd wanted Scone she could have had him while I was unconscious, it would never work anyway.

Perhaps sensing my intention to disable her in some way, Jessica moves away from my feet, back to the table.

"Am I then to presume that this communication-" That wild terror rises again in her face. I can see her heart beat through the dress. "Does this message have something to do with where I'm supposed to be?"

"No. About where he can't go."

"Oh, I did a good job leaving you in charge, didn't I?"

"Thank you, Doctor."

"How do I meet you?"

"…Not knows now. Before-was when-" She stops herself there. Presses her lips tight and looks down at her knees. Her eyes keep darting up to the window in the door. This corridor seems relatively abandoned; the motion-activated lights have been out for as long as I've been awake.

"How did it happen before?" Jessica starts picking the sequins off her dress, one at a time and frantic. It's not long before I notice she's pinching her legs beneath it. Muttering the word 'bad' over and over. "Enough of that," I tell her, and she stops as quickly as she started. "The event you are keeping me away from, is that how we meet?"

"Not," she says. I don't believe her. Scone doesn't believe her either, though he would have me say nothing. Stay here. Give in to the fear, the knowledge that there is something out there from which I have tried to protect myself. This is not just Scone's usual distaste for confrontation. She replaced his eye, you see, and so he is sympathetic towards her. His milky new eye gleams with it. But, in good conscience, I cannot.

"Jessica, you do understand that if this does not go ahead, it will all be unwritten. You, this you, here, everything since we met, that won't have happened."

"Stop. He knows time-stuff makes sore." As if to demonstrate, she holds her head. Glancing again towards the door. Her voice had lifted then, and she looks so pathetic, but I've had an idea. Scone won't like it, but Scone has only been in time two days.

"Think who you were when you met me. That's where you'll go back to."  
>"<em>No<em>." This is lower, almost a whisper. It does not put me off.

"Yes, I'm afraid. You'll never have lived this, but you won't know that. It will simply never have been."

"Doctor stops talking now…" Scone rather concurs with her. I should have had her put him back in my pocket, to prevent this kind of interference.

"You won't exist, Jessica, not as you are now."

"Not matters!" This she shouts. "Doctor not thinks! Not matters about Jessica!" Now that she is properly upset, she is on her feet, leaning towards me in her ill-fitting dress with her fists balled up. And she told me this very loudly.

There are heavy booted footsteps in the hallway. The lights shudder on and as it comes through the door and strikes her face, Jessica seizes. Perfectly still except both hands clap tight over her mouth. Too late. I want to tell her that I'm sorry, but she says it first.

"She told him; am bad-friend."

Jessica sits back down. If there was a moment when I might change my mind it's when she looks, tearful and hopeless, towards the door. However, just then the door is kicked open and I am freed by Peacekeepers who are, apparently, most concerned for my wellbeing.

Some of them break off. They pick up Jessica by the arms and she, resigned, goes with them. Hangs her head and doesn't look back at me. When I look down at Scone, that new eye is watching after her. "Oh, shut up you. I did it for her." The Peacekeepers are looking at me, but they keep a distance. This, in turn, allows me to walk out of the room and back to the Tardis. "You saw her face when I told her she'd never change. We couldn't do that to her now, could we, Scone? Honestly, you are _heartless_, my little friend. No, no, best we off to this appointment, you and I."

At the door of the Tardis I pause, take the psychic paper from my pocket and study it. Bid my farewells to the Peacekeepers, who alternate between watching me and looking nervously at each other, and off once more.

Once I am back inside the Tardis, I place both Scone and the psychic paper on my chair and go to the console. The message came through ten minutes ago, and one must always be punctual when it comes to these matters. I am putting in the details when, behind me, something flaps flatly to the floor.

Slowly, I turn.

Scone sits up on the edge of the chair. The psychic paper has been pushed onto the floor. "Scone?" I say softly, cautiously approaching. "Yes? What is it?"

The milky new eye falls out. Jessica did her best, bless her heart, but really it would have needed to be a touch of egg white to keep it in there good and safe. It falls out, and bounces once on the wallet of the psychic paper.

So I pick it up. Now that I'm inside, and not in such a hurry, I notice that the message on the paper is untranslated. There is only one language which the Tardis does not translate. One which it has no cause to translate. Why should it?

It would be like English subtitles on an English film.

Suddenly, to me, the difference ten minutes can make becomes all the more urgent.

This is not what Scone was trying to tell me. Scone was trying to warn. Scone meant that I should be careful, that I should stop and rethink. I am aware of all this, as I go very quickly back to the console and log the destination. Telling her, "Hurry, old girl."

Telling Scone, who had eleven brothers and sisters and can have more any time Pond chooses to use the oven, who, so long as there is a recipe and flour and chickens for the eggs, can never be the last living Scone, that I'm sorry and that I don't expect him to understand.


	8. Chapter 8

The journey could not feel longer if we were to travel these lightyears by foot. Saying that, I would if I had to.

"Of course," I tell Scone, "the language signifies nothing. Just because the language has died does not mean the appropriate symbols do not still exist and might be… appropriated, I suppose." Scone's empty socket, soggy with milk, winks up at me. "We should get you a little eyepatch. And no, no, it's not that likely."

I had been trying, in a way, to keep my expectations low. Scone's scepticism allows me to dream, once again, of what might be waiting at the other end of the vortex. One of my own.

Perfectly plausible, of course. The time-lock, yes, prevents any alteration of Gallifrey's history, this is true. But this has not taken the race out of time entirely. Quite the opposite, in fact – all things which were fixed to have happened at the point at which my planet was closed off from the universe _must_ necessarily go ahead. My participation in this meeting, whatever it might turn out to be, is written.

I find myself thinking of what River said. That, come the time, I would understand what _had_ to happen. This dampens my spirits, somewhat, if only for a moment. Because it occurs to me that I just do not care. To see one like me again. Someone who understands, who has lived that part of my life that nobody else had. So long since I've spoken my own language. How embarrassing, that one's Tardis should translate into one's own native tongue.

From the corner of my eye, crushing my excitement, I notice Scone. Who has not moved or changed his expression, being a scone, but still, somehow, has an air of the judgemental about it. Scone's mind is still back on the station, with our strange and brief kidnapping. Scone, it seems, has his baker's tenacity and determination; "_You_," he is saying, "didn't want you to come here. Surely that means something?"

He is a scone, and does not have a Scottish accent. If, however, Scone were to somehow develop a voice, it is no leap at all, really, to imagine he might have taken on the characteristics of his creator. For the record, for absolute clarity, I hear no voice in my mind associated with Scone. I simply _imagine_.

"You don't understand, Scone. There are some opportunities too golden and rare to pass up, regardless of the personal consequences. The Doctor of the future has moved on, has gained perspective. Believes me to be better off not knowing. He's forgotten the pain of the moment. No, Scone. This is written."

We arrive. We land. My fingers do not tremble as I move to wrap up Scone, they do not. Even if they did, I wouldn't have time to notice. Scone is still glaring up.

"Fine," I tell him. "Stay here if you feel that way." I am turning away from the console, _perfectly _content to leave him, when we hear the scream.

Outside, beyond the doors. A genuine and prolonged cry of pain. A woman's scream.

So Scone goes in my pocket. Not safe to leave him here. And I am supposed to treat him as a companion, who would _never_ stay in the Tardis now. Also, he is in my pocket, and there is comfort in having someone, anyone, at one's side when the unknown screams.

Beyond the Tardis door there is a cave. Dark stone silvery with condensation. Gleaming, opposite the door, with fresh blood. The victim, the woman who screamed, is pinned to the wall. Something that looks like a wooden stake is clean through her right shoulder. Another is through her left heart.

"No." It's the only word I have. It's a whisper, then a cry. I run to her, and pull her free of the stone without removing the blade. "Don't bleed out." Through pain, her eyes swim back and find focus with me. To be sure, I check for her other heartbeat. It takes a while to find it. It's gone weak and distant, irregular.

I want to tell her she can't. I want to tell her it's not fair. I tell her instead to regenerate.

There's something sweet and breathy to it, the hint of a smile she hasn't the strength to give. A hand tries to reach up to my face. I take hold and press it. "I'm all out," she manages. "You don't remember me."

Something I hear all too often these days. I can only shake my head.

"That's alright. You were twelve when I left."

She's slipping, her eyes are closing, and all I've done is talk about myself. "Who did this? Quickly, who?"

"I'm sorry," she sighs. "We could have-"

"Tell me!"

"-could… could have… ended this."

The war. She's talking about the war. We could have ended the war.

She dies. Bleeding on me, she dies. Goes out like the last of a fire. All over again.

There will be a time to mourn. There is no time now to feel anything. After briefly studying the area I pick her up and carry her into the Tardis. Standing at the door of the medical bay, something old and low and futile threatens to overcome me. I turn, and find a new and open doorway behind me. Beyond it, a raised bed of crisp, cool white. This will do. I lay this body, this person who knew me beyond the simple recognition of my face, here and remove from her wounds the twinned weapons that killed her.

Killed. May I never forget the word 'killed'. That she was killed. That I saw her killed. That I could not prevent her being killed.

These blades I leave by the console. Then back out into the cave.

The sonic detects three things. Two of these are the residual force of temporal and spatial travel. The woman within, the dead one, is wearing a vortex manipulator, which explains one signal. The second, I assume, belongs to her assassin.

The third thing is an electronic device on the far wall. I turn, and see a recorder wedged in between the rocks. Perfectly positioned for a shot between the Tardis and where the woman had stood. I detach it and, holding it in my hand, turn once to see that there is nothing else for me here. If there ever was to begin with. It is a pleasure to shut the door upon it.

When I had heard the scream, I had gone to it. In all of the hurry, I had not checked the monitor for any details on the place itself. I am now wholly unsurprised to find the cavern referred to in the brief as 'a cursed place'. It seems to me a precise and complete description. In hate, in viciousness, I erase all other details, down to the co-ordinates.

The monitor now also shows the substance analysis results for the murder weapons. While it has the look, as I previously noted, of something wooden, it is also cold to the touch. By the cleanness of the wounds it travels through flesh and bone with relative ease. There is a mild blue sheen to it reminiscent of polished steel, and yet it does not ring as steel does. The Tardis identifies it as Tirinnanoc Ash, but offers little additional information. Out of simple interest, I check it quickly with the sonic. No reading is offered, no effect is produced. This, when there is time to be worried, will be very, very worrying indeed.

It is difficult, near impossible, to lift up that recording device. Not that it's heavy, not that it's large, or awkward, not that I am in anyway physically prevented. Just that I don't really want to.

But it must be lifted, it must be raised up to the console and connected and the recording played.

It begins with the woman, so different without the contortions of pain, leaning down, turning the recorder on, waving to check it's going.

"Matrix transfer protocol," she says, the bored tone of one who has read the same script a thousand times. "Exchange number-" This she checks against a pendant she wears, a dark rectangle with a red electronic display, "Four-five-seven. Designation 'Keeper' to transfer to designation 'Doctor'."

The Keeper. I may not have remembered her face, but I know her legend. I wish I didn't. I wish I knew nothing about her and the body was still no more than a body. I wish I didn't know the legend because now I have to know I'm part of it.

There's a while, now, where the Keeper, as I now know her to be, stands around waiting for me. Time enough to get it done and for her to get away.

After ten minutes, the same time I left my last time, my last place, a figure steps out of the wall. There is no other way to put it. A humanoid figure steps forward, seemingly out of the stone. Dressed in black. Dressed loosely enough to disguise gender, and wearing a mask with two large eyeholes rimmed with black.

The Keeper attempts to defend herself. Her killer, for we must not, not ever, forget that she was killed, shakes down the two blades now lying in front of me from under their sleeves. Firstly the Keeper was pinned, by the shoulder. Then her assailant snatched off the black pendant. It is at this that the Tardis appears in the picture. I am inside it, arguing with Scone and threatening to leave him behind.

The assassin looks over their shoulder at it, quickly drives the other blade into the Keeper's left-hand heart, and leaves. They do this by, apparently, snapping off the wooden-steel blades, stepping back, and placing their palm to the part of the wall they walked in at. That's where they walk back out.

Just as I step out of the Tardis.

Just that second too late.

This is not the time to grieve, but that is a difficult fact to remember. And while I am glad that I currently have no human company to witness these events, no other pain and mourning to consider, there is a tendency inherent in all creatures of feeling to reach out for comfort.

I have bitten into Scone before I quite realize. He is, however, stale and hard and I do not get far. Sitting down on my chair, I set him off to the side with only a small chunk from him.

At this moment, it is hard to see anything as any more than what it is.

"I'm sorry," I say. And I am. Nonetheless, Scone is just a scone. I am very much alone here.

So is the Keeper. And this is unforgivable.


	9. Chapter 9

The Keeper was the guardian of the Time Lord's matrix; the collected wisdom of all the travels of the race. The matrix itself was lost to legend when I was growing up, as the ways of our world were buried under red tape and bureaucracy, but it existed. And, in incidents such as the one I just left, after a fashion, it still exists.

When we were children, in our earliest training, it was well-known that the Keeper seldom left the archives. She was, to us, something of a joke. We called her the Librarian instead.

The face bled pale and peaceful before me is not the fusty old hag we used to laugh about. Strange, how a child's mind does that, turning everything into threats and fairytales.

And here is the fairytale ending.

The legend of the original Keeper was that she had, one day, vanished from the archives. Some said the President himself had cast her out. All we knew was that she had never returned.

The true story of the Keeper is that she went with some perfect piece of information to try and help me prevent a cataclysmic war and while I dallied around getting kidnapped and arguing out the finer details of timeline interference with Scone, she was murdered and that information stolen.

Murdered. Murdered is a better word than killed. You can be killed by lightning, by cancer, by space station debris falling from the sky. Murder is an act of will perpetrated by one being upon another.

Perpetrated. That's a good word too. It implies there is a perpetrator, which is good, because a perpetrator can be caught. Can pay the consequences of the actions which it perpetrates. It is a cold and sickening comfort that I gain from this fact, but comfort nonetheless.

The nearest sun to the cave is dying. In our darkest hours we must be thankful for these small fateful coincidences. I get the Tardis into orbit, safe distance, a couple of hundred lightyears away.

What goodbye can I say to the Keeper? The wicked witch of my childhood was only real to me for a few short minutes. Neither have I any worthy apology to give. Not in words anyway.

Perpetrator. That's a nice word. But then I explained that already.

The Keeper's vortex manipulator is preset for her return to Gallifrey. It is out of interest or desperation that I try it. And yes, her body stutters like a faulty lightbulb in front of me, but soon enough it becomes solid again. The time-lock. Too late to stop her murder and ahead of my time locking her out.

So I change the settings, and activate it.

This time, she disappears entirely.

Downstairs, I watch on the scanner as the sun beyond collapses into her, then flares forth beautiful, rejuvenated. In all of this I am acutely aware of saying nothing to mark the occasion. Humans do that. Humans say a few words. Gallifreyans would have said a _lot_ of words, but then generally they said a lot of words about most things.

Me, for as much as I might chat away, with or without company to chat to, I have lived far, far too long for words. Or the empty ones, at least.

Somewhere behind me, that video recording is still playing. That ruthless blade, one then the other, I can hear them. As I watch the new sun, it plays on a while.

She says, "You don't remember me."

This time I tell her that I wish I'd known her better. Then I hear myself asking who did this to her. And I add, "Because I _will_ find it, oh dear sister of the race. That thing in the mask. It will be found. And it will pay." And there will no grief, no apology, no few words to mark your death, until such times as that has happened.

"Could have," says the Keeper, from fifteen minutes ago, "Could have ended this."

"Oh," I tell her, "Oh, we will."

I am only drawn from reverie when the telephone rings. It's about three rings in before I even notice, so by the time I answer, Amy is on the other end, saying to Rory that I must be 'out'.

Which has always perplexed me because, being of no fixed abode barring the Tardis herself, I'm not necessarily ever _in_.

Nonetheless.

"Hello?"

"Doctor! Good, you're there. These pictures you sent, of the statue. Why is River there?"

"How long has it been?"

"Aren't you on your way back? Come back, I need to ask you about-"

"So it's three days?"

"Yes."

"Thank you."

I have no explanation and am not in the mood to try and explain regardless, and so I hang up. I set my course for the Ponds back on Earth and sit down.

Poor Scone, poor scarred and bitten and blinded Scone, still sits where I left him earlier. "I'm sorry," I tell him again. "I _have_ to apologize to you, I don't have an action to make up for that. It was silly and thoughtless and the damage was irreparable."

The milky socket has turned, with time and neglect, into the mouldy socket. I am about to tell him I told him so, re: eyepatch, but then he reminds me of something. Jessica. The mad girl with the barely-English who tried so valiantly to fix Scone's visual impairment. The one that kidnapped us for our own good. She said, or tried to say, or rather implied in a fractured collection of sentence fragments, that I was to meet her at or as a result of the event I just visited. Or, in layman's terms, the death of the Keeper.

Murder. We were going with murder, weren't we?

I have one theory. One horrible momentary-madness of a theory. But Jessica seemed so precious, when she wasn't throwing punches. Sweet. Really the most charming, inarticulate little creature. She put her head on my knee.

Scone, despite having lost the replacement raisin since, still believes in her kindness, and concurs. Initial mad-moment theory must be wrong. Meeting Jessica must be some tangent of said event, rather than a more direct result.

"Well, Scone, I'd say I'll let you know how it turns out, but as I so recently discovered, you're nearing the end of your days." The Tardis judders because I've left the brakes on again, but Scone nearly falls off the arm of the chair. It has become commonplace to catch him. "Oh, don't get offended. All got to go sometime. You had a three-day lifespan. If you were a mayfly you'd be _ancient_ by now. And you'd never have gotten so far. I think it best I take you home for the latter moments. That's what things want, isn't it? To finish it where it all began. Count yourself lucky, dear Scone, that you have the luxury."


	10. Chapter 10

It is late, on Earth. I arrive at the point I left, at the back door of the Ponds. It was good of me, you know, picking out this little townhouse for them. Four bedrooms for the ever expanding family, the fourth being in the attic for as they start going through puberty and they want them out of the way, three bathrooms including a master en-suite, lovely big kitchen suitable for baking. It is to this womb that the wounded Scone now returns.

My handkerchief is now more bandage than blanket to him, and what small portion of his little face that I can see looks placid. He has, perhaps, accepted the imminent moment of his mortality.

I let myself in. It's not that I kept a key, like a landlord, or that I'm sneaking in, like a nasty landlord, and it's not that I ever had the intention to visit them or perhaps their future children while they slept, just to see, no, none of that. It's like giving a key to a friend in case you get locked out. Only in this case the friend may be on the other side of the universe and completely useless to you at the crucial moment, spare key Russian roulette, yes, anyway.

I am in the kitchen, in the dark. Out through the door, light falls out of the living room, into the hallway. And in it the shadows of the Ponds move around. Amy is loud, and Rory is quiet, which probably means they're arguing. Before I announce myself, I hover a moment to be absolutely sure.

"Look, I don't care what age she is compared to us, that is my _daughter_, in a crowd of _Silents_, while he makes a _speech_ at the end of a _war_!"

"And you can ask him when he gets here but-"

"So excuse me, Rory, if I'm a little bit wound up just now!"

Yes, they would appear to be arguing.

I leave Scone, in my handkerchief, on the table. Then I produce from my inside pocket that little notepad, which has irritated me for some time, due to the fact that I cannot remember when I started to carry it.

I leave Scone, and I leave a note.

"_Dearest Ponds_," it says, "_I concede. Though I did not forget Scone, I did rather miss the sensation of someone running after me. He asked no questions, never mind the right ones, which became deeply frustrating after time. I cannot begin to communicate how annoying it is to travel with one with no interest in travel. It is perhaps due to this fact that Scone never notices things either. _

_ I have not come in to speak to you directly because you are arguing about one of these things which Scone failed to pick up on. I have since picked up on it, and I am working now on an explanation for it. Chasing down a lead, as your detectives would say on Earth. Scone can't come. That's why he's back._

_ In only two respects of our original wager have I triumphed. Firstly, you asserted that Scone would not know me well enough to stop me should I go wrong. Not to go into too much detail, but I have recently experienced such a circumstance, and it is now my opinion that Scone knows me as well as anybody, including my own future self, and is just as capable of ever stopping me from doing any given thing. Secondly, he lasted a great deal longer than ten minutes. I have no photographs of day three. I have a video, which you will undoubtedly see in due course, but not tonight. Until then you'll just have to take my word for it._

_ With love,_

_ The Doctor, who very nearly made it._"

The note covers three sheets, front and back, and so I leave it out in order for them. The living room has fallen quiet now and, wary lest someone should suggest turning in for the night, and they see me from the hallway, I let myself out as quickly and wordlessly as I came.

"You were quick," says River.

She's concerned, and so does not immediately attempt to kiss me. The fact that I bypassed landing protocols to park the Tardis outside her cell, setting off alarms everywhere and bring a veritable army down to make a fuss over us, that may have put her off somewhat too. Also, I am out of arm's reach, and this is quite deliberate.

"Those co-ordinates you gave me. With the one-seven. Or the seven-one, however you like to think of it. Why did you do that?"

"You wanted to see the start of the war."

"That's not where I ended up. I ended up kidnapped by a sweet, broken little thing trying her level best to keep me from what is, very probably, another one of those fixed points we had that long marriage about that time."

"I didn't know that would happen."

"No?"

"No." She shakes her head, just that once, serious in the eyes and very sincere. Which, in part, is why I do not believe her, not for a heartbeat.

"Do you understand, River, what it is to have all you could ever want dangled in front of you and then snatched away?"

"Yes." And this time I do believe her. Perhaps the question was cruel. Perhaps I should feel something, something like guilt or remorse or… anything. Whatever. Something. But there'll be a time for all that.

The guards are moments away. I open the Tardis door and step back in.

"Wait!" she calls after, "Where are you going?"

"_Out_."

Then a weak smile, a feeble attempt at a laugh, "No Scone this time?"

"Scone can't come."

"Amy?" River asks, no longer trying to laugh, "Rory?"

"…It's too dangerous for a _pastry_, River."

"What is?"

"Oh, just the mood that I'm in, just now…"

"Stop! Do you even _have_ any sort of a plan?"

"Of course I do. Apprehend the perpetrator of a murder. Ooh, apprehend, that's a good word, isn't it, apprehend…" Before she can say anymore, I close myself back into the box, vanishing out of there just as the guards fire the first stunner at the outer shell. The warning lights flicker, but mostly the old girl doesn't notice.

About a minute later, the monitor shows a warning received. An all-points-broadcast, as it were, warning all travellers in the system and its neighbours that a very dangerous convict has just escaped.

Which is fine.

Let her come.

No more than Scone, no more than Jessica, no more than the Doctor himself, is River going to prevent what happens next. What _has_ to happen. The oath I made to the Keeper as she burned a dead star fresh. Come the time, she said, I will understand.

There will be a time for that and all. But not tonight.

[A.N. So, friends and folks, that's sort-of the end of this little arc. Just want to say a massive thanks to everybody who's read, reviewed, alerted, favourited, borne with me when it all went a bit serious there, and all the rest. Basically anybody who's here, big thanks. Anyway, I turned out to be setting up more than I could really chew on. I just need to know if anybody things the story is worth continuing. There probably won't be any recurring appearances by Scone (the Mould's got a hold of him now, sniff-sob), but I can promise much fun and adventures along the way, and some scary dark bits, and all the rest. So, via review or PM or any old way, let me know? Or, as the case may be, don't. Not gets offended.

Hearts, and thanks again,

Sal.]


	11. Trespass' Preview

_The Keeper's assassin had stepped through stone and over great leagues of time and space, all in one step. Holding itself, arms wrapped tight around each other, it rematerializes in the same white box of a room it originally left. At it's right hand is the same little box, the co-ordinate log, which sent it away. In front of it, just a little above eye level, is the same round window and, now that it has returned, the same guard's face looking in. Tilting his face to the left, unused to the patch on his eye._

_ It shows him the blood on its hands. Or tries; it is carrying a small bronze disc in the left, holding tightly to it in fear of losing it. He nods._

_ The white room turns briefly red, scanning the killer for any contaminants brought back from outside. Then flashes blue, once, and returns to white. The flush edges of the door hiss as the pressure lock is released and it slowly opens. Beyond there are old smells and sensations – the feel of people the right size and shape and weight moving around in the right places. The killer picks up on all of it, sensing the different walks of the guards and the Tall People. Out of it all, it finds the sharp taps of Owner's long strides. Owner wears strange shoes. The guards wear heavy boots and the Tall People wear flat dark shoes. Owner wears shoes with a spike at the back that make her taller._

_ The killer hears her coming and feels its own heart-rate finally slow. The adrenaline ebbs away, and it shakes loose its arms again. The fear, finally, fading. It does not know the word 'home', has no concept of it, but the sense of solidity, of absolutes, in its heart, is much the same feeling that human society associates with the word. It waits for Owner to come._

_ The guard, who it surmises to be new since it is not yet accustomed to having one eye covered, does not hold it in the transport room, but steps out of the way. It walks to the edge of the gallery and watches for Owner. _

_ The room beyond is flawlessly spherical, around fifty feet in diameter. The single perfect wall is lined bronze in tiny dots, each of them like the one it holds in its hand. _

_ And far, far away, all over the universe, there are little bronze discs just like it too. _

_ Owner arrives. With four guards, she is carried from bottom to top on the platform elevator. She stands back, and the guards file out onto the gallery. The killer goes through the drill without thinking, without even boredom, much as one might put on a uniform in the morning. It rolls back its sleeves and holds both arms out straight. _

_ Twinned, just below the elbows, are two small wounds, already drying out, plugged with ragged shards of hard, bluish blade. _

_ Owner, watching, shakes her head. It looks up and watches the lips form words – "Told it not to snap them." Saying it makes Owner think of something, look up in alarm. The dark painted lips move again, a little too quickly. "-Was – wrong, was-" The tilt of the chin and the brow, asking it something. Answering only what it saw of the question, it shakes its head._

_ The guards have, by now, placed the steel shackles over the wounds, preventing any more blade from coming out. It moves its arms down in front and allows them to shackle the wrists, then steps onto the platform with one at either elbow. The other two stand between it and Owner. _

_ The platform stops halfway down the room, where it fits neatly into the space between the walkways. These bridges stretch out to the walls, where technicians move around on magnets, placing and cataloguing the little discs. It feels them move around like little flies on the edge of its vision._

_ Owner looks directly at it, and ensures it is looking back. Then says, "We sent it to kill the Keeper. Is it done?"_

_ It nods._

_ "Good. It was to retrieve matrix information from the Keeper. Is it done?"_

_ It takes the Keeper's black pendant with the glowing display from a pocket inside its loose tunic, and passes it over._

_ "Very good. Anything else to report?"_

_ It holds up the disc in its left hand. Owner seems pleased, and a little confused. "You planted this?" It nods. "Why?" It brings both hands up. Crossed over on its chest, to indicate both sides, the fingers tap twice on its collarbone. Boom-boom. Two-hearts. Time Lord. And now, Owner is very pleased indeed. "Which? And where was it planted? How do we designate it?" This is all said too quickly, but the killer knows these questions, and presumes them from the words it picks out. _

_ One of the guards hands it a Cleanslate, and the pen that draws in electric blue on the transparent surface._

_ "Type 40 Tardis," it writes. "Designate Doctor."_

_ Nobody moves. Nobody reacts, or takes the disc from its hand. Slowly, cautiously, it looks up at Owner, and Owner's face is angry and dark. It quails, moving back even from the guards, against the platform rail. _

_ "Not in the time _you_ just came from. You're mistaken."_

_ It brings up its hand and taps its head beside the eyes – 'Saw him'._

_ "The Doctor died at Lake Silencio. It's a recorded fact." _

_ Owner, pursed and wrinkled with disgust, snatches the Cleanslate from it and gets off the platform. "It has to learn not to make up stories," she says, addressing the guards, "Take it for punishment."_

_ It shakes its head, it tries to run after Owner and, if it knew how, it would scream. The tapping at the side of its eyes turns into a full force blow, until the guards restrain it. The platform again begins to sink towards the bottom of the room. It looks pleading up at Owner, who stares back with nothing but distaste. _

_ It cries. It knows how to do that._

_ And before they reach the bottom and it is dragged away, it manages to put the rejected disc away safely in that secret inside pocket. _

[Hi again, folks! Since a couple of people have actually (shockhorror!) expressed an interest in hearing a little more from me, I've decided to go ahead. Love is such a motivator. This here is just a little teaser for the next part, which I should hope to at least get started by the end of the week. Just so y'all don't forget me (!) So, if you fancy it, keep an eye out for Garmonbozia again. I'm thinking of 'Trespass' as my title for episode 2. (And trust me, we do not take kindly to stowaways on the Tardis). Anyway, with love, hope to see you soon,

Sal]


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